It is known that skin lesions occur frequently after burnings and accidental injuries. For their care autologous skin preparations have been used besides the usual treatment of wounds. The use of autologous skin preparations is, however, limited by the size of the defect. Therefore many attempts have been undertaken to use collagen forming a principal constituent of corium, fibrous tissue, tendines, fasciae, and ligaments in the field of medicine for instance as temporary skin graft, vascular graft (angioplasty) and so on (cf. for instance Umschau 66, 1966, 230). Concerning the attempts up to now to develop a suitable material for skin grafts it is referred to the monograph "Experimental Skin Grafts and Transplantation Immunity" by D. L. Ballantyne and J. M. Converse, Springer Verlag Berlin, 1979. Modified blood vessels from bovine (so-called bovine-heterograft) have been used for some years for blood vascular grafts (compare for instance Rosenberg, Surg. Forum 7, 1956, 243). These grafts did not fulfill the expectations since irreversible changes of the walls are caused by the penetration of substances from the blood running through. Therefore they are hardly used anymore nowadays.
Nothing is known about the production and the use of collegen preparations, their biological texture being preserved, for other medical applications. The use up to now of collagen preparations in the field of medicine is limited to spongy collagen. The biological texture of the collagen is destroyed in these cases causing changes of its physical and also of some biological properties (cf. for instance M. Chvapvil, Collagen Sponge, Theory and Practice of Medical Applications, J. Biomed. Mater. Res., 11, 1977, 721-741).